Charles McCarthy '96 was a school dropout at age 12 and a
confidant of men such as President Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover,
and Woodrow Wilson before his death in 1921. In between, McCarthy
played three years at fullback for Brown at 135 pounds in the rough
push-and-pull era, earned a law degree from the University of
Wisconsin, and became nationally famous as a law librarian at the
University of Wisconsin, where he devised a unique system of
cataloguing. Born in Brockton, McCarthy received a brief education
in the public schools and was then apprenticed to a shoemaker. Not
happy with this life, he ran off and became a cabin boy on a
schooner. He developed a thirst for education and was personally
admitted to Brown by President Andrews. A hard-hitting fullback
despite his size, McCarthy scored Brown's first touchdowns on both
Harvard and Yale. His size was actually a plus factor on these two
plays, as his teammates picked him up and threw him into the end
zone. McCarthy still holds the Brown record for punt returns with a
97-yarder in 1985, one of 16 touchdowns he scored for the Bruins.
McCarthy earned his way through Brown by working on staging at the
old Providence Opera House and by rolling the athletic field, which
was then on the Lower Campus. He and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., '97
would often go to the theater together, with McCarthy insisting on
paying his own way. The two usually ended up sitting in the
balcony. McCarthy's book, "The Wisconsin Idea," was published at
the request of Teddy Roosevelt, who wrote the forward. When the
Progressive Party held its convention at Chicago in 1912, the
former cabin boy from Brockton was among those who prepared the
tentative draft of the platform.